


For the Sinners to Play as Saints

by Ash_Cassidy97



Series: This is Your Heart [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Finn is Not a Virgin, Finn-centric, M/M, Multi, focus on Finn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 11:07:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6751534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ash_Cassidy97/pseuds/Ash_Cassidy97
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He ran away, first chance he got. Don’t forget that part. He came back. It’s the second part that matters, it’s the part that Finn forgets most often.</p>
<p>Kylo Ren, the First Order, the death of one of the kindest men Finn would ever meet, second only to Poe, and Rey. That all went down in a space of maybe three days. And oh, yeah, Finn lost parts of his back to a lightsaber.</p>
<p>That’s the part that gets written about, but it’s not the part that Finn remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the Sinners to Play as Saints

He ran away, first chance he got. Don’t forget that part. He came back. It’s the second part that matters, it’s the part that Finn forgets most often.

 

Kylo Ren, the First Order, the death of one of the kindest men Finn would ever meet, second only to Poe, and Rey. That all went down in a space of maybe three days. And oh, yeah, Finn lost parts of his back to a lightsaber.

 

That’s the part that gets written about, but it’s not the part that Finn _remembers_.

 

He remembers BB-8’s and Poe, Poe’s smile to be exact. He remembers the calluses on Rey’s palms, the kind that things get stuck to, pulled in like gravity chasing after grains of sand. He remembers gripping those hands first because that is something. He remembers Han Solo.

 

Han Solo knew exactly what he was, is. Han Solo was a rough man, used to living by the skin of his teeth, sold his own ship to keep himself abreast. He never sought out a war, got pulled in by youthful looking folk, the people that went searching for an adventure. Well, that’s not how Finn remembers him.

 

Finn met Han Solo when he had a head full of propaganda, and a hopeful girl peering up at him, calling out ship parts. He met a man who was in deep shit, like really deep shit and was content with himself and the world at large. For Han Solo, it was another day, another Tuesday. And that’s the important bit, the really important bit. Finn found an exception to the First Order’s rule that he wouldn’t be well without them (the First Order didn’t really have a concept of happy). But this man had two different groups of people after him, trapped on a ship with man-eating monsters, and he defended an ex-storm trooper because _it was the right thing to do_. But it wasn’t the easy thing to do.

 

And he was at _home_.

 

The first time Finn ran, the very first time, it was during a training exercise. He didn’t _run_ after that, not really. He marched. The second time he ran, Slips was dead. FN-2187 ran for the second time with blood, not red or red paint or any other illusion, streaked across his white mask. He ran for the third time with a pilot named Poe Dameron. Got a name change for that one.

 

He got another friend the fourth time he ran.

 

Finn learned to run from a man with his feet in the sky and a girl who never left the same 100 kilometer radius, if that. He learned to run because a good man, a friend, would never run again.

 

Finn learned honor from a smuggler. There’s a grand truthful irony in that.

 

He learned kindness from a man who was his enemy. He learned a reckless kind of bravery from an abandoned girl. Had them pinned around his collar when he faced down a Sith.

 

But he left first.

 

Write it off. Say it doesn’t matter, but it does. It matters so much.

 

He came back.

 

Don’t get the second with out the first.

 

And he came back. He stayed because his friends were attacked and that scavenger, the one who actually believed that he was someone worth trusting more or less, was taken after she gave him a _chance,_ more than the First Order ever gave him. She gave him more credit than he deserved. He didn’t give himself enough.

 

He picked up a lightsaber for the first time. It was blue. There’s an importance to that. No, seriously, there’s an _importance_ to that. It is important that he picked up a blue saber and faced down a man who used to be something to him, because they were going to hurt _Rey_.

 

So, Finn stupidly followed Han Solo to D’Qar and ran into Poe, his first friend.

 

Count that down. A pilot, a scavenger, and a smuggler. It sounds like a horrible joke. It sounds like a horribly written adventure if you think a little harder. It sounds like recopied desperation. It sounds like a prayer, if you bothered to ask a man who didn’t have faith.

 

Finn used to be a sanitation man. He broke into a First Order base because they had his friend, and Finn was malleable and new at the whole Good Side thing, but it was the right fucking thing to do and that’s it.

 

He watched a good man die. He wouldn’t mourn Han Solo the same way Leia would, Luke would, or even Rey or Poe would, but he would mourn him all the same. Han was the second man who didn’t care who Finn used to be. Finn watched a good man be noble, try to save his son, and got himself killed.

 

Finn didn’t know if there’s a lesson in that. He didn’t really stop to think about it.

 

He heard a war hero, an enemy, tell him to tell a girl about his sordid past, like it didn’t matter, like it was a streak of red paint across his face that would never matter, not the dripping blood and the feeling that he was still wearing his helmet. Han saw another couple of kids, wading in because kids do that. Finn saw . . .something, something that mattered, something that the First Order shouldn’t destroy.

 

Finn wasn’t a hero. Rey wasn’t either. They, along with Poe, were something else entirely.

 

Finn fought a Sith in snow because Rey was hurt. She got slammed into a tree. He picked up the lightsaber because he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t run and he sure as fuck wasn’t going to march into his death. And it was _blue._ Poe was somewhere not here, and Finn was all that was left.

And then he remembered nothing.

He woke to Poe’s face leering over him.

 

“Hey,” Finn said huskily. Poor Poe. “We win?” Poe laughed, and hugged his friend.

 

“Careful,” a healer barked. “I just spent a lot of time stitching you up.”

 

Poe held Finn down. “Easy, you’re fine, Finn. Finn,” Poe repeated. Finn shuddered and stayed on the bed. “That’s it.”

 

It’s how their friendship kicked off. But it wasn’t how it started. Poe went with Finn. Picked a man who was his enemy. Picked a man who was outmanned, outgunned, and still refused to bow to Kylo Ren. Picked a man who made jokes.

 

Honestly, Finn wanted out and he saw a good man.

 

Poe, used to Leia’s special brand of crazy, picked a stormtrooper because it wasn’t his first day on the job.

 

Finn spent weeks trailing after Resistance people. It wasn’t just Poe, it was never going to be just Poe. Don’t you dare say that there aren’t other kind people, people who went through shit.

 

Jessika took him in, forced Finn to eat actual food. Finn had to take a minute and breathe in the scent of actual _food_. Leia kept her distance because she was a General and she knew refugee camps like the back of her aching wrists. Poe’s crew has no issue surrounding Finn, taking him in. They did teach him how to lie better.

 

“You know,” Jessika started slowly, carelessly. Finn kept a sharp eye on her because she reminded him of Rey, a little bit at least. “I used to be a slave. Had a collar around my neck. If you ever need to talk or can’t sleep, find me if you want. Door’s always open.”

 

Jessika used to have a collar. Poe used to not have a scar. Leia used to not have so many headaches. Finn used to not have to make his own choices. Finn used to have a squad and the First Order instead of Ika and Lomn and this family. But none of them would rather it be any other way.

 

Finn learned how to bumble his way through things, getting people to forget that he was a soldier, a badass. The old enemy brought over. Finn learned how to disarm people with a shrug and a smile and kindness.

 

It took four week for Rey to haul General Skywalker back to D’Qar. It took four weeks for Finn to not sleep with one eye open. He started sleeping naked in Poe’s bed, purely for platonically comforting reasons. Finn would curl up against Poe’s back, slinging arms over places that had no need of arms. Poe used to not have wet dreams every single fucking night.

 

(The first time Finn jerked off, was years ago. The First Order was not stupid. They were  smart. There were no orgies, but there were no suppressants because their soldiers were flawed. You can jerk off, there can’t be much more harm to that than your already fucked genetics, huh?)

 

Finn knows exactly how Poe would look under him, pinned, splayed out but with enthusiastic consent. Like there would be so much consent, okay. Finn can picture it just fine; he’s seen Poe naked, changing after a shower. But he’s never actually had sex with another person. He knows his palm and body and he can read Poe just fine. But he’s never had sex with somebody else and it already feels like he’s fumbling through enough as it is.

 

“You know, you could just ask,” Rey told him because she was the one who never learned shyness. Shyness starved and died. Orders kept Finn alive. And Poe-Poe was something so far out of their combined league that it was useless.

 

Finn flopped onto Rey’s bed.

 

She was so damn brave, to him. She towed a Jedi Master around because she was persistent and brave, and this person who didn’t know how to be anything except herself.

 

“You first,” he said. “I know you want him too.”

 

“I do,” she admitted. “Together?” She asked casually.

 

The thing is, the thing is that Rey nearly left a little robot in the clutches of others because she was not kind. She was not grand or large or something that had been found. She was tiny, sand-scrubbed, left of a person. She was her own kindness. They were both these bright, kind people who just fucking got each other.

 

“You want me too?” He was more surprised than he should have been.

 

“Of course.” Rey was equally surprised. “And you want me?”

 

“Of course.”

 

But a lot happened between that conversation and the conversation with Poe.

 

Finn picked up a lightsaber habit, picked it up from Rey and Luke like it was another weapon. He wasn’t going to be some Force unifying Jedi. **Fine** . He wasn’t going to try to be some grand hero. **Fine**. He can still beat Master Luke on a good day because it was Finn, and Finn used to be a sanitation man on a warship. Fuck that noise in his ears.

 

Here’s a forgettable fact: General Skywalker used to be a whiny moisture farmer.

Here’s a forgettable fact: Poe used to be a tree climber on Yavin 4.

They grew up.

 

Luke wasn’t really surprised at Finn’s abilities. Luke had studied the legends from the Old Republic. You need a little something to even light a lightsaber. Luke should really stop putting so much stock in the legends of old. Rey could get him to on the very best of days. She used to be a scavenger, a battler of storms. Respect her.

 

To Finn, the Force felt like those seconds when he stood next to Poe, just stood there, stood on a deck of a spaceship because he was no longer a sanitation man. He felt like he did on the day when he picked a group of random people over his comrades, the guys he grew up with, because it was the right fucking thing to do. Fuck the noise in his ears.

 

(Fuck the people who call her Mary Sue, because she is goddamn awful at not doing the right thing and avoiding trouble.)

 

Poe started training, learning Jedi mind tricks. Recovering.

 

Luke ended up teaching a lot of people old tricks. His students were no longer children in peacetimes, running late because their advanced chemistry class got a little rowdy. His children were the orphans, carved out of shadows left from his last apprentice. Yeah. Luke has Issues. Most of his students were out of fucks to give. They were harsh, unforgiving task masters. Leia was more than a little proud of her children because they were hers.

 

Finn sidled up to him after a class. “You know, I don’t blame you.”

 

“What?” Luke asked, hurrying to gather his things. Luke wanted to leave and go hermit his way back into his cave of a room. Leia had been kind enough to hold ten ceremonies to honor the return of her brother because Leia is a kind soul like that.

 

Luke used to be a whiny moisture farmer, do not forget that. Finn used to be a sanitation man. Han Solo used to be a lot of things. Ben Organa could’ve been so many.

 

“I figure, if anybody could blame you, in order of importance, it would the General, the dead, and the lives stolen by the First Order. I don’t blame you.”

 

Luke tilted his head. “I don’t blame you either?” Finn rolled his eyes. “Thank you.”

 

“Hmm,” Finn mumbled, scuffing the bottom of his shoes against the dirt floor. Dirt floors, what the Force is- not the point. “If I didn’t rebel, would the whole fate of the war be blamed on me?”

 

“No,” Luke said slowly, not getting the point. Poor Luke. Finn had days to be armed with Jessika and Leia’s notions of freedom. Finn had motherfucking ketchup and Poe and Rey.

 

“Good. So if say Poe was to murder somebody tomorrow, would I be blamed for it?”

 

“No?”

 

“Precisely.” Finn turned and left. Luke kinda just stood there and then shook it off. Everybody has things to carry.

 

Ben Organa could’ve been a lot of things. Here’s a secret: Luke only wanted him to be happy.

 

Rey knocked on Poe’s door later that night, as per her agreement with Finn. Finn waited for Poe to get it. Finn was calmly sitting in a chair, fiddling with some wires. BB-8 was in the corner because what more is an over friendly droid in a polyarmous undertaking?

 

“Yes?” Poe asked slowly.

 

“Can I kiss you?” Rey asked, making sure that all of her words were very comprehensible, individually at least.

 

“I don-Finn?” Poe asked.

 

“Fine by me,” Finn said gibly.

 

“Okay then,” Poe said cautiously because Poe had been around. Rey kissed him furiously, backing him into to the room, kicking the door shut with her foot. She slammed him up against the wall and moaned into his mouth.

 

Finn sat there, waiting patiently. He knew Poe, knew him like the back of their combined hands.

 

“Wait,” Poe dragged out, prying Rey back an inch. “Wait.”

 

“I want to have sex with you,” Rey said very clearly. Her life was not going to be a romantic comedy if she had any say about it.

 

“Okay. Awesome. All the sex, I’m for it, but maybe we should wait until we’re alone?”

 

“Why?” Finn asked. “I want to see you spread out, taken about and then pieced back together.”

 

Poe moaned. His hips stuttered. “Yeah, o-okay, I’m down with that plan,” he said dryly.

 

“We want a long term thing,” Rey said firmly. “Not an open relationship or-”

 

“Yeeees,” Poe hissed out. “Forever.”

 

Finn watched them. Rey lept up, digging her knees into Poe’s waist. Finn shucked his pants. Finn still didn’t wear underwear. Poe moaned, and clutched at Rey.

 

Several hallways away, Luke grumbled and shut off the Force because fuck no. He was a Force-damned respectful Jedi. He bet Old Ben didn’t have to put up with this shit. Somewhere, Anakin Skywalker was laughing his ass off because _oh yes he had._

 

Poe, Rey, and Finn slotted into place like they could be no other way, but that’s where the fault lines are. Poe could be a tree climber on Yavin 4. Rey could be just a scavenger. Finn could be a sanitation man on a darkened warship. Don’t you dare forget that.

 

Write it off. Write that the past is the past. Nothing matters. But it does. It matters so much, because they chose a different way. There was a choice. It wasn’t fate. It sure as hell wasn’t predestiny.

 

“They were in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Naturally, they became heroes.”- Leia Organa

 

finis.

**Author's Note:**

> Unless I decide to be nice to Luke, this really is the last one in this series. I have way too many feels about Han Solo and Finn, and the incorrect time to find that out was four paragraphs into this monster. It’s been a bit since I’ve seen the movie. It’s been way longer since I’ve read the books (I started at the beginning, the chronological beginning, the one we do not talk about). I don’t wanna finish it. I just- it’s sooooo horrible. No seriously, defend Clone Wars to me. And it’s written by a somewhat good author.
> 
> Me: what are run-on sentences?  
> Me: I thought I would fall in love with Finn or Poe or-  
> Muse/Poe: Rey and Leia all the way.  
> Finn: Seconded.  
> Han and Luke: Yep. . . And none of that Disney bullshit either.  
> Me: Yes, Masters. …. Now I feel dirty.  
> Luke: No dirtier than JJ Adams.  
> Me: Preach.
> 
> I’m a nerd. Blue is for protector Jedi. They’re the ones who hunt down Sith. Green is for Jedi who just want to guard the balance, think of the Unifying Force. Qui-Gon vs Obi-Wan. I think it’s the coolest thing. Sorry.
> 
> The title is from Crossfire by Stephen. The title thing is more aimed at the audience because we are not going to have a “finn is so innocent” because fuck that noise. Inspiration:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOsz6G3mAYg&index=19
> 
> I am still angry about the killing of the expanded universe. I am the only one.


End file.
